


Composer Unknown

by aderyn



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Childhood, Composing, Dancing, Episode: s03e02 The Sign of Three, Ghosts, Music, Pining, Sherlock dances with everyone, Sleeping Together, and some ghosts, including John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-01-09
Packaged: 2018-01-08 02:00:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1127063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's very warm, the ghost he's holding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Composer Unknown

He's very warm, the ghost he's holding. Turning and turning, lightly round once, lightly round twice, the triple time holding and lifting. Waltz, self-composed, untitled as yet (he knows) full of secret stops. Breaks. A break for… what, breath? A warm not-body held close (past, present, future) in steady hands, closed.

He’s held very few; been held, even less.

*****

Tell that to the curtains.

“Sherlock,” she calls, “I thought you were…” His mother, years ago, interrupting a reverie not unpleasant, composition spilling in flicked ink, carmine on the page...

“Studying.”

He was, really. He was studying, sketching, arms lofted over his head, taut, neck lifted, out and up and--

Graceful, light as a grace note, ghost note, rest—not the same.

“Could you eat,” she says, “Really Sherlock. You’re a reed; you look ill …”

“No.” He shuts the door with a pointed toe.

Ghost note, grace note, rest—not the same.

Ghost composer—not the same as what he is.

He bows to the curtains, starts again.

*****

At uni he held another, lifted, was lifted; it was exhilarating, almost as the cocaine, the notes buzzing the nerves, the music as eloquent.

A plié between reactions, decompositions, among the flasks. Broken glass, a dodged kiss; broken glass;a breakup.

A mystery.

He sniffed in the cold, shrugged off the coat, unearthed in the archives an old manuscript, composer unknown, a lost waltz.

“Lovely find, Mr. Holmes."

“It’s what I do.” He looked over the unnecessary spectacles; supercilious, sharp in his suit, toe shoe pounded to a bloody point.

“If only you applied yourself so well to your studies.”

Turned away. Examined his veins.

Penned notes, left the ghosts.

*****

Ah, tea. Sugar and milk and _someone cares_.

John? (What would I need you for? _I do._ )

Light's pale on the dead things, the books and the bones.

“Dear,” Mrs. Hudson says, “I’ve made tea for murderers; you’re not fooling me.”

“You married one too, I recall.”

“Yes, that too.” She takes his hand, tilts, listens to the ghosts-strains, the dread-notes of him.

(She pulled him up, not long ago; he spun her round 'til they went breathless, shook the haunts from his hair.)

“People date ghosts all the time, Mrs. Hudson. They do; marry them too, get divorced …”

Likely as a ghost hound.

“Sherlock,” she says, rests fingers on his soft wrist.

John needs to trim his nails, he thinks. Dots and dashes on his pressed palms.

They turned, just last Wednesday, round this room, pure and clear-headed. Not eye-to-eye but it seemed so. So blue. Grey, too. Like this, he said, like this. You aren’t hopeless; look how you’ll be. Follow. You always do. Lead. You do that too.

Not a surprise that it’s easy. Like this; like this; like this.

“Could you eat,” she’s saying, Mrs. Hudson.

“Sugar,” he tells her.

His bowing needs work.

*****

Dating a ghost. Not bloody likely.

But not impossible.

Mary looks a phantom in her wedding dress; in the best way though, Victorian lace, bright, called back, mediumed to a new world, or an old one.

Glowing.

He tweaks a stanza for her, chews the pen. Turns.

He tells her what he thinks, runs fingers over fabric, feels the stitches and gaps and --

“Will you be all right?” she says, smiles.

He catches her, turns her once, round the room in motes of sun.

Solves for nothing.

*****

There are things more difficult than being dead. **  
**

Mycroft’s Waltz.

He actually composed something called that once.

Played it.

Considered.

Burnt it.

Not this time.

He pens the last note of his wedding gift.

Waltz, sarabande, requiem.

Pulls the curtains.

Bows his head.

*****

John climbs the stairs so carefully.

Doesn’t know his own grace.

“Sherlock, you OK?”

“You all right?”

“Come here.”

His hand (if he recalls right, he does) passes over Sherlock’s back, lifts and pauses.

Three times, a sweet arrhythmia.

“A last lesson, then?” Sherlock says.

Brilliant smile.

Suspended, tender, between notes.

*****

Spring blooms in triplicate.

Molecules moving, freckles and sparrows.

He sneezes in the sunshine, stands, stalk, for a fall of petals outside the church. **  
**

He plays, (bowing, bowing):

_I want to tell you._

He makes the composition sing.

_I want to tell you._

_Have said so much._

_But all I can’t say_

_Is here, in the notes in the ghost notes._

_In the music three, three, three-_

_A code. Read between._

*****

There are things more difficult than being dead. **  
**

That night (one to remember) he slept with an arm over. John’s face in repose, not sleeping, not minding. A warmth next to him in a small space like animals in a den; well, they’ve before, rested close, but not like this, not without…duress, weather; not by choice. Midnight. Turned onto his side (not comfortable but wrapped) and felt a warmth clutched close, the scent of hair, not his. Breathing, a little quick; pulse a little quick for sleep. All right. Drop an arm slow, steal a few more…what, steps, winks, minutes, unable to say, wanting to stay. Here we are; here we are; here we are.

Here we are turning. Here we are held.

Later he holds it, that warmth, (chalk outline filled in, erased, saved not solved), turns to his own music, walks triple time, more rhythm than pitch, to the Work, turns, leaves revelry behind, doesn’t look back, holds it turning (it might be joy); holds it turning; holds it close.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Ghost notes, dead notes, false notes-- musical notes with rhythmic value but no pitch, represented often by x’s in musical notation.


End file.
